In these times, truth needs defenders like Guardian editor

I first met Alan Rusbridger, the acclaimed and highly accomplished former editor-in-chief of the Guardian at Harvard University in May 2007, on my very first day as the Star’s public editor.

Of initial note, to many of us in the room was this-now legendary British editor’s uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter, an observation that seems to come up in just about every article I’ve since read about him. But it was Rusbridger’s wise words that left me in awe and had lasting impact.

Rusbridger’s talk to the Organization of News Ombudsmen conference — an annual gathering of global public editors and ombudsmen that took place in my inaugural week in this role — set me on course for a deeper understanding of the complexities of this work I had just taken on and why it matters. I have never forgotten his talk and have looked to my ragged printout of his speech for courage and inspiration many times through the years.

Remember, this was back when social media and smartphones were not yet a dominant mode of news delivery and well before an American president was demonizing journalism with charges of “fake news.” But in his talk, entitled “Ombudsmen in the digital future,” Rusbridger made clear to us the inevitability of media organizations needing to become more transparent and accountable in a time of “unprecedented change” in what journalists do.

In 1997, two years into his 20-year tenure as editor, Rusbridger had created the role of readers’ editor at the Guardian — “a figure independent of the editor who could represent the views of both readers and subjects.”

He told us that our work of upholding journalistic standards, publishing needed corrections and explaining journalistic decision making were vital to trust in journalism and the important relationship between a news organization and its audience.

Now, more than a decade later, Rusbridger has reiterated his belief in the work of news ombudsmen and reader/public editors — a role that has existed at the Star since 1972. In his recently published, highly engaging account of his two decades leading the Guardian through a revolution in journalism, Rusbridger writes: “The act of creating a readers’ editor felt like a profound recognition of the changing nature of what we were engaged in.”

He decreed that the readers’ editor would control daily corrections and write an independent column about broader issues of concern to the Guardian’s readers.

“Allowing even a few inches of your own newspaper to be beyond your direct command meant that your own judgments, actions, ethical standards and ethical decisions could be held up to scrutiny beyond your control. That, over time, was bound to change your journalism … Our journalism became better.”

In his book, Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters Now, Rusbridger expresses his clear-eyed understanding of the fallibility of journalism and its methods of gathering information in often hasty circumstances.

“Journalism was not an infallible method guaranteed to result in something we would proclaim as The Truth — but a more flawed, tentative, iterative and interactive way of getting towards something truthful,” he writes.

If journalism and its methods don’t always reach The Truth, then certainly corrections, done willingly and transparently when necessary, get us somewhat closer, says Rusbridger, eloquently expressing my view, too. “If readers know we honestly and rapidly — even immediately — owned up to our mistakes they should, in theory, trust us more,” he writes.

“Journalists should have no conceivable interest in publishing wrong information. It’s the opposite of what journalism should be doing. Uncorrected errors corrode trust.”

Rusbridger has much else that is worth paying heed to about the revolution in journalism and his time guiding the Guardian through some of the most far-reaching stories of our time: WikiLeaks, the Edward Snowden disclosures about mass surveillance, the phone-hacking investigation that brought down the News of the World — all stories that became fodder for movies.

On Nov. 29, the week his compelling memoir is released in Canada, Rusbridger will be in Toronto to be interviewed by Toronto Star editor Irene Gentle at a public event sponsored by the Canadian Journalism Foundation. Full disclosure: I am chair of the CJF programming committee that invited Rusbridger to Toronto.

Indeed, I have been waiting more than a decade to hear this smart editor speak once again. Kathy English is the Star's public editor and based in Toronto. Reach her by email at publiced@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @kathyenglish